More Miata LED Posting

"TysMagic" (twjeffery) 07/24/2019 at 11:35 • Filed to: miata, led, mx-5, mazda

1

13

Finished the last of the blinker swapping over the weekend. Learned a little more and broke my two-ish year streak of problem free car projects

“You parked ON the line” -everyone

Quick recap - I put in sequential taillight LEDs and swapped for LED sidemarkers recently. That left the orange bulbs hanging in the front to be replaced! Which is where catastrophe hit.

Ten minute project no more!

The bulb fell out of the housing connector as I was pulling it out. It was reachable for a bit, then fell down in to the lower part of the housing - which is currently where it will live and the problem is “fixed.” The lower part of the headlight housing (circled in red) contains some electronics and motors for the headlamps that do that neato turning with the car business. I suspect, at some point, the bulb will bounce around in to one of those and cause issues. I did buy a grabber tool (thanks oppo fb) in case this ever happens again. Currently, it’s not visible and not causing harm so there it stays. 

Anyway, on with the show:

BEFORE - stock incandescent bulb

AFTER - 18 LED bulb

The bulbs required resistors so I picked up a couple t20 plug-n-play kits. Mazda was prepared for me to do that and made the blinker connector ever so slightly different than the generic connector I picked up. Took a couple minutes to compare the connectors, then I hacked off a few millimeters of plastic from the kit and they fit perfectly. I am comfortable with wiring/electrical, but I wanted the simplicity of reverting to stock or whatever if needed in a flash, this allowed for that.

the kit with bulbs

Side note: this post isn’t a plug for the kits, but I do have two kits with the same amber bulbs available for sale if anyone is interested - $25 shipped in the US

Left Stock - Right LED

I debated on the size and number of LEDs for a good bit. I was originally considering a smaller bulb, but wanted to make sure that I retained/improved upon the blinkers purpose. I am glad I didn’t go with the largest option I found (27 LEDs) as I think it would have stuck out too much. Turns out 18 is super bright and just enough to not look terribly ridiculous. For anyone interested, I considered a 13 and a 9 LED bulb as well.

This was exactly what I wanted in the end! Cleaned up orange free headlights, but amber when on.

Turns out I really like the darkness of the parking garage and the moody photos it sets me up for

And with this swap, anything that is blinker related is now an LED. I’ve been poking around and noticing a few other things I’d like to play with so I’m not sure what I will do next. I am enjoying how easy everything on this car is. It’s all so accessible! (looking at you Fiat).

vicali > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 12:01

0

then fell down in to the lower part of the housing - which is currently where it will live and the problem is “fixed.”

CaptDale - is secretly British > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 12:12

1

Funny enough the number of led diodes on the bulb doesn’t help with brightness. There is a lot of study done on these and most of the cheap ones are designed for “universal ” fit. And while they do fit in the housing they are not designed with the housing reflectors in mind. This means while they may work, they can actually produce less throw and output than the factory halogen bulb and far less than the proder LED bulb designed for that vehicle’s use. This does make them more expensive. Which is one of the issues we face especially with LED low and high beam bulbs. The cheap chinese ones people put in their cars are not designed to work optimally with they housing . This is especially true with reflector housings and also with projector style. The light emitted from the LED bulb isn’t thrown right and thus messes up the light output and pattern. This mean not only are you not producing more usable light output than the halogen, but you are also blinding oncoming traffic.

So not that your blinker is of much concern their, but if you wanted people to see you more and the blinker more, then these might not be the right bulbs for that. Just a heads up too incase you change the mains to LED as well.

TysMagic > vicali 07/24/2019 at 12:18

0

yup

TysMagic > CaptDale - is secretly British 07/24/2019 at 12:26

0

TIL - well partially learned. I am aware of the change in output and issues due to the housing, however didn’t consider that as much of a concern since this is for the blinker. I think the logic behind the brightness thing is where people argue. If you have more of a light source at the same output level, it’s just more light not necessarily brighter since we didn’t increase the intensity (probably not the right term). Is that following the logic correctly? 

Everything else in the housing is LED already so that portion shall not be played with anyway!

CaptDale - is secretly British > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 12:31

1

Yeah pretty much. Just becasue you have a more powerful bulb doesn’t mean you are seeing any better and in most cases you have less light output and throw in terms of usable light.

Well at thest you don’t need to spend more money upgrading those then

CompactLuxuryFan > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 14:15

0

Wait, so you just left the bulb rolling around in there? 

TysMagic > CaptDale - is secretly British 07/24/2019 at 15:34

0

true, don’t have a whole lot of money in these any way 

TysMagic > CompactLuxuryFan 07/24/2019 at 15:36

0

It’s rolling around down here so I would have to remove the whole housing and most likely disassemble it to find where it’s fallen in to. Currently...it’s not hurting anything or visible lost in the abyss of the lower housing. So while I’m pretty frustrated about it, there isn’t much that’s reasonable I can do to get it back.

Post updated to include this pic, I wasn’t very clear with the fact that you can’t see where the loose bulb is anymore 

TysMagic > vicali 07/24/2019 at 15:42

0

updated the post to show where it is - I’m sticking with “fixed” for now. It does pester me knowing it’s in there 

CompactLuxuryFan > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 15:56

0

Oh weird! What’s all that empty   space down there even for?

TysMagic > CompactLuxuryFan 07/24/2019 at 16:00

0

Adaptive headlamps, they turn when the car turns. That’s my concern is that the bulb will bind up the motor at some point - just not sure when that’ll happen.

Removing the headlight requires removing the front bumper is why I didn’t just do it proper. 

CompactLuxuryFan > TysMagic 07/24/2019 at 16:11

0

Adaptive headlights turn a few degrees at most. I doubt anything is sweeping through all that space. I’m thinking it might be for cooling or something like that. Probably worth it to take the bulb out regardless. I’m thinking this could become a relatively common happening as people start swapping their ND turn signal bulbs. Your DIY guide could blow up in a few years 

TysMagic > CompactLuxuryFan 07/24/2019 at 16:18

0

I can’t find it, but while searching for what was down there I found a broken housing on ebay and it showed a long plastic piece with teeth on it that spin a gear to turn the bulbs. Didn’t get much else from it, but thought it was interesting.
While all in I’m sure it’s only a few degrees left or right (and up and down based on what they do on start up), it sure seems like a lot of movement!